Words of Magic
Words of Magic are learned by Magi, altered by Inflectenti, enhanced by Adjectivum, and strung together to create Spells. The basis of all workings require that you gain “purchase” or “grip” on the object. You are less using your own spirit to cause, for instance, a two-ton boulder to rise. You are accessing the inherent spirit of said stone and invoking it to rise. Words *Pyro - Ignites a flame above your hand and grants you purchase on it. More generally, it grants purchase on heat. **Frigus - Freezes the area above your hand. Insula - Maintains your body’s temperature. *Aqua - Condenses a ball of water above your hand and grants you purchase on it. **Nebula - Condenses and grants you purchase on a cloud of mist above your hand. Glacies - Condenses and grants you purchase on a globe of ice above your hand. *Terra - Grants you purchase on the mineral ground around you for some distance. Additionally, you gain information about said bedrock, “tasting” or “feeling” the composition. **Petra - Terra grips all the ground around you and works by feel, Petra is more focused, gripping a specific stone or section of rock visible by you, granting you limited scope, but much greater control, and much more specific information. Metallum - Grants you purchase on a section of metal. Considered equivalent to Petra, but for metal. Both are needed separately to pull metal out of ore. *Aer - Grants you purchase on and sensitivity to the air around you. **Volvatus - Renders you light as air. Caelum - Grants you purchase on and sensitivity to your local weather system. *Fulgure - Conjures a current of electricity **Magnus - Controls magnetic fields, Resistere - Render you nonconductive. *Lux - Conjures a ball of light above your palm, and gives you purchase on said light. **Umbra - Darkens the area in question. Chroma - Alters the wavelengths of light. *Vibrato - Grants purchase on sound, beginning with your own voice by amplifying it. **Silencio - Stifles any sound you have purchase on, Sonus - TransWords a sound into a different sound *Seducere - Grants your voice an irresistible, compelling quality. **Somnum - Grants your voice a hypnotizing, emotion-numbing, somniferous quality. Inspirare - Grants your voice an intense, emotion-inducing, galvanizing quality. *Cogitatus - Allows you to send your thoughts to others, and allow others to send their thoughts to you. **Scrutor - Allows you to delve into the minds of others. Imperium - Allows you to cause the thoughts you send to others to override their mind, controlling them. *Oculus - Allows you to scry or view remotely areas from a distance. **Oraculum - Allows you to peer into time, both backwards or forwards, with varying degrees of accuracy. Verum - Allows you to see the flow of magic, and into other dimensions of power. *Bestia - Grants you the ability to commune with animals. *Silva - Grants you the ability to commune with plants. *Vicis - Grants you purchase on your flesh, allowing knowledge of your body and the ability to pull it back together if wounded. Also applies to bodies you can touch. **Mutare - Lets you change or alter facets of your body. Volnus - Inversion of Viscus, lets you wound or damage your flesh, or flesh you can touch. *Vitae - Grants you purchase on your own life energy, and if you can touch another person, channel your energy into them. **Morte - Reverses the flow, pulling life out of a being you can touch, into yourself. Roboro - Burns life energy to perform superhuman feats. *Sanguis - Grants you purchase on your blood, rapidly sealing a wound, generally after pricking one’s thumb. **Vena - Purifies blood by rendering it repellant to all foreign substances. Stirpis - Rapidly curdles blood. *Fortuna - Grants you purchase on chance, increasing your “luck” regarding the next thing you do. **Malum - Inverts Fortuna, decreasing the “luck” of whatever you have purchase on. Probabilis - Tells you the likelihood of a particular outcome. *Ossus - Grants you purchase on your own skeletal structure, or that of someone you touch. *Locus - Grants you purchase on a locality, but only in a symbolic sense. When focused, grants you a map of said locality. *Tempus - Grants you purchase on the timestream. When focused, lets you know exactly how much time has elapsed between the present and a moment in time you remember. *Anima - Grants you purchase on magic itself. An extremely difficult Word to learn, it is traditionally the last When learned, however, the base Word grants you purchase and understanding, almost equivalent to “tasting” a rock with Terra, on a spell performed nearby. *Nidore - Grants you purchase on the olfactory senses, initially by conjuring forth a smell or taste the caster recalls. *Impetus - Grants you purchase on kinetic force. The base Word is demonstrated traditionally with a thrown object, as it negates a force which is acting upon the practitioner. *Pondus - Grants you purchase on the pull of gravity, manipulating the weight of an object. The base Word renders you or a subject upon which you have purchase weightless. *Affectus - Grants you purchase on a subject’s emotional state. The base Word is notably difficult for youthful students, as it renders you acutely aware of your current emotions, breaking down any barriers you may have at the time. **Tranquillum - Renders yourself calm by repressing your current emotional state for as long as you hold the Word. Furor - Imposes an emotion you can easily recall, or your current emotional state if used unthinkingly, on a subject upon which you have purchase. *Memoria - Grants you purchase on your current senses, allowing you to “record” your present forever. **Retinentia - Walks you back through your own mind, letting you reconstruct hazy memories with time and focus. Obliviscor - Permanently erases a specific memory from you or a subject you have “purchase” on. *Intellectus - Grants you purchase on your own mind, allowing you to set your full faculties on a logistical issue. *Sensus - Grants you purchase on your own senses, amplifying one to the height of human ability. **Caecus - Deadens a sense upon which you have purchase. Phrenesis - “Overloads” a sense upon which you have purpose. Notably, this usually occurs by translating sensory input from other senses into the targeted sense. Practitioners have noticed this, and begun using this Word to induce synesthesia for a number of different purposes beyond simple sensory-overload. *Deliritas - Induces a kind of hallucination, not by altering the input of the senses, but by altering the way the mind interprets the input. Deliritas leaves a subject in state of confusion, but the exact nature of the confusion is down to the subject’s reaction. **Ecstasia - Similar to Deliritas, but puts a distinctly pleasurable spin on the state induced by the Word. Insania - Similar to Deliritas, but puts a distinctly horrific spin on the state induced by the Word. *Spiritus - Technically the origin of all Words, Spiritus stops before commanding a given spirit to do anything, and simply coaxes forth the spirit within a given subject. This requires you to gain purchase on the subject in the first place, so this spell is taught by using an object which is important to the practitioner, such as a childhood toy or family heirloom. Generally, without using magic, one finds that one has gained “purchase” on said objects already. *Vox - An extremely odd Word, and not commonly used, this Word grants the practitioner purchase on a word. Not a spoken word, or a written word, but the concept of a word. Fiddly in the extreme, this spell is mostly used to translate, as the base Word gives you a sense of how the word in question will be interpreted by a subject on which you have purchase. Beyond its use in translation, it is this Word which Masters of Magic use to imbue the Word with additional “weight”. Adjectives * Manus - Allows you to “push” and “manipulate” anything you have purchase on under your own power * Brutalis - Amplifies the strength of a form * Acutus - Decreases the strength of a form * Tempore - Repeats or sustains a form for a certain amount of time * Perpetuus - Creates a stable system within the form, rendering it permanent unless tampered with. Extremely difficult adjective to enact, especially on the fly. Relies on the locus, or “context” within the spell is being performed. Notably is “perpetual” only if the current state of the locus remains the same. * Concertativus - When linked to a form, counters the use of a form by inverting the shape. Used almost exclusively in counter-magic and abjuration. Pyro Concertativus used on-the-fly will negate an opponent’s use of the Pyro form, but for example, Locus et Pyro Concertativus Perpetuus will negate all uses of the Pyro form within the boundaries of a given context, and if the Perpetuus is successfully enacted, will do so until this Working is disrupted. * Signum - When the proper preparations are made, the form’s energy is bound within an object. This is very similar to the Perpetuus Adjectivus, and is often used as a training step as one learns the higher-level Adjectivus. Traditionally * Impendio - When applied to a form, expands the “range” of the spell. However, you generally require a great deal of familiarity, or a link such as a picture or piece of the subject * Sympathia - When applied to a form, creates a sympathetic link between two subjects or contexts on which the caster has purchase. As long as the form is sustained, effects within the spell’s context will be shared to both subjects. Examples of Higher-Degree Spells * Lightning Bolt - Aer et Fulgure * Storm - Caelum et Nebula et Fulgure * Heal - Vicis et Vitae - The simplest, most effective method of healing someone via magic is the standard Vicis et Vitae, lay your hands on the wounded, grip their flesh, force it back together, and pour your own life energy into them to jump-start the healing process. This technique works great for gross tissue damage, but truly talented healers don’t stop here. * Bone, Flesh, and Blood - Vicis et Sanguis et Ossus et Vitae - Working in concert, these four Words turn a body upon which you have purchase into putty, reshaping to your desire. * Realistic Visual Illusion - Lux et Chroma Triplex - Lux to generate the light of your illusion, with a minimum of three Chroma Forms to generate Red, Green, and Blue, the variation of which can create a fairly realistic-looking illusion. Chroma Quattro can be employed to render your Illusion with greater depth of color, should you face people versed enough in illusory magic to discern the basic from reality. Chroma Quintus and beyond provides diminishing returns, but is still employed when Master Illusionists go head to head. * Audible and Visual Illusions - Lux et Chroma Triplex et Vibrato Multiplex - While a single Vibrato Form can create multiple distinct sounds, they all originate at the same point. Thus, any Audio-Visual illusion that wishes to seem realistic requires an individual Vibrato Form for every source of sound. The more Vibrato Formae, the more naturalistic the sounds within the illusion. * Olfactory - As previous, et Nidore Multiplex - A rarely-used Form due to its limited usefulness, the addition of Nidore is nonetheless what separates good illusionists from great. Given that both smell and taste rely on roughly the same input, Nidore can grant both sensory impressions to an illusion. ** Other Additions: The addition of a Impetus Form can give the illusion of “feel” within your spell. The more Impetus Formae you layer on top, the more “textured” the conjurations become. If you have what appear to be humans, animals, or plants within your illusion, the addition of Cogitatus, Silva, and Bestia can “texture” said conjurations. Seducere et Vibrato can help “smooth over” the rough edges of an illusion by adding a charm effect to the illusion. People are less likely to look for errors within an illusion if they want to believe that it is true. Finally, Master Illusionists find that, even a simple Spiritus Form gives their illusions a “solidity” beyond what is quantifiable. * Better Than Life - Lux et Chroma Multiplex et Vibrato Multiplex et Nidore Multiplex et Impetus Multiplex et Spiritus et Cogitatus et Seducere - A Tenth-Order Spell at Minimum (Necessitating Chroma Triplex minimum rather than Chroma Simplex), this can create an extremely hard-to-resist illusion.